1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a rail vehicle equipped with an anticlimber disposed at one end of the vehicle and extending over substantially the entire width of the vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
In the event of a collision between two rail vehicles, there is the risk of one vehicle body being pushed up over the other with a certain degree of vertical misalignment, by which means considerable damage to the passenger compartment will be caused. To prevent this, it has been usual in recent years to provide the end regions of vehicles with so-called anticlimbers.
An anticlimber of the type mentioned above, has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,434 A, for example.
Usually, anticlimbers possess several parallel and horizontal fins, as may be seen, for example, from the drawings shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 of the prior art. In the case of the partially shown railroad carriage 1, an anticlimber 2 is disposed at both ends thereof and extends over substantially the entire side of the carriage such that in the event of a collision force can be diverted into the chassis region of the carriage. In the vicinity of the coupling 3, the anticlimber 2 becomes narrower or is interrupted. The anticlimber 2 projects beyond the end wall of the carriage, as shown in FIGS. 1 to 3. It might possess a cover, for example of fiberglass-reinforced plastics material, which in the event of a collision will be destroyed before mutual engagement of two anticlimbers takes place.
Known anticlimbers almost always compete with the coupling for space, for if the level of the coupling and that of the base of the carriage are fixed, there usually remains little space for an anticlimber when taking into consideration the movements of the coupling. This is shown, for example, in the article “Herstellung von Schienenfahrzeugen” (“Production of Rail Vehicles”) in ZEV+DET Glas. Ann. 123 (1999). The space left for the anticlimber is in many cases too small for the installation of a continuous anticlimber.
The problem involved must be regarded as being that the total space occupied by the anticlimber is limited, as mentioned above, on account of the coupling, but it cannot be assumed, on the other hand, that when an accident occurs, the anticlimbers of two colliding carriages will be at exactly the same level.
This problem leads either to complete failure of the anticlimber or to some undefined force absorption taking place while at least partially by-passing the shock absorber system that is usually installed in railroad carriages.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a rail vehicle in which the aforementioned drawbacks are overcome as far as possible.